Christina Mavuma

She is a trans activist from Botswana who is apart of the Rainbow Identity Association (RIA), and works with Health Lens; a program that provides services to primary care practices and gives independent physicians an opportunity to engage in meaningful change. It has been described as a movement of change, helping to reshape the role of primary care, and to sustain the cognitive art of medicine.

Her project is looking into transgender women and health care system. She was motivated by the fact that most trans women here cannot get formal jobs and therefore cannot afford private health care.

“So many trans women find it difficult to access health care from the state clinics or hospitals, as the doctors and nurses there are discriminatory and very judgemental, most painful thing is there are not knowledgeable to trans issues. Even though the services are available they are not user-friendly to the LGBTI community and matters worse for the transgender community as the medical cards are genderised blue card for boys and pink card for girls and this card is given to you after you produce identity card.”

The intended outcome of this project is to have doctors and nurses to treat all people with respect including trans or intersex people. It is meant to start dialogues between the doctors and the trans community.

She is also involved with The Exchange Program, which is a partnership between Gender DynamiX in South Africa and SIPD in Uganda. This program is aimed at capacitating emerging transgender activists in South Africa and the East African region. Participants get together twice annually to discuss relevant, burning issues on the agenda for the region.